SANTA CRUZ >> Jennifer Carole had just graduated high school when her dad and stepmother were murdered inside their Ventura home in March, 1980. It took nearly 20 years for authorities to determine the suspect was the “Golden State Killer,” a man suspected in a dozen murders and about 45 rapes across California.

Wednesday morning, with the buzz of her cell phone, Carole received news she had waited decades to hear.

“They got him,” read a text from a friend.

Carole, who lives in the Santa Cruz area and works in Silicon Valley, was elated to hear reports that authorities had arrested a suspect in the murder of her father and stepmother, Lyman and Charlene Smith, who were found bludgeoned to death in their home. DNA evidence have led authorities to believe the Smiths were killed by a man known as the “Golden State Killer” and “East Area Rapist.”

“I’m having a range of emotions,” Carole said by phone Wednesday morning. “It’s happiness and horror. I’ve cried today. I’m still shaking.”

Lyman Smith was about to be named Ventura County Superior Court judge and Charlene Smith was an interior decorator when in 1980 they were bound together with drapery cords and beaten to death with a log from their fireplace, the Santa Paula Times reported. Their bodies were found by Lyman’s 12-year-old son.

Initially, police didn’t suspect a serial killer. Instead, two years after the murder, they arrested Joseph Alsip Jr., a former business partner who lost big to Lyman in a real estate deal, the Santa Paul Times reported. Alsip eventually was released for lack of evidence, and in the mid-1990s, advanced DNA evidence tied the murders to the Golden State Killer.

Carole said Wednesday she spoke with the district attorney’s office in Ventura County, who confirmed the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72. At a news conference later that day, authorities announced murder charges have been filed against DeAngelo, of Citrus Heights, in the murders of the Smiths.

“The feelings I have are relief, and also sadness that he’s kind of real now,” Carole said. “It’s a real person. It was easier when it was an unknown monster.”

A LONG DAY

Carole sat in her Santa Cruz home Wednesday afternoon still in shock by the news after a day of interviews with the media. She still hadn’t had the chance to understand what had happened.

“For my coping, I had to make him dead because I became a single mom by choice and I couldn’t live in fear of this guy,” Carole said. She said the homicide gave her the chance to overcome the past while honoring her dad’s memory. She said she did not see him that often and last had seen him the Thursday before he and his wife were slain.

A BUFFER

She said she has lived with two names, her professional name for which she is known in Santa Cruz and her given name, Jennifer Smith, the name she used in her dealings with investigators working her father and stepmother’s case.

“I just wanted a buffer, a form of protection,” she said of her alias. She received the call from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office about 11 a.m. Wednesday. The official told her the DNA link was “100 percent,” she said.

“I knew that, if we ever caught the person, it would be done because we had the DNA and the DNA was consistent across the crimes,” Carole said. “Then, I realized, oh my God, we’re possibly going to go to trial.”

She said she would prefer a guilty plea but does not expect that result.

“He’s going to want all the attention he wants out of this,” Carole said. “I’m already so mad that he has three names. I’m mad that he is the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker and the Golden State Killer. I really wish he had a horrible name like Shower Scum.”

She said she and other victims’ families have “so many questions” that may go unanswered.

She had “no clue this was coming.”

“I just don’t want him to get all the attention he wants,” Carole said. “I’m in disbelief he was in Sacramento.”

She has family in the state capital and studied there after the killing.